CLASSROOM-AS-ORGANIZATION News
Roger Putzel
Many months have passed since anyone has used this list to communicate about the classroom-as-organization (CAO). There is NEWS – good news. Just some items:
· XB has returned to the nest. Since my retirement 7 (?) years ago management and organizational behavior had been taught traditionally. Late last year my long-time colleague and friend Paul Olsen (now on this list) decided to take the plunge (more on the plunge below) and run his management class as an organization using XB. He encountered all of the confusion and uncertainty that you all know so well but had the signal advantage of having tenure and working in a department where some memory of XB persisted. So he did fine – until Covid-19 shut the whole college down. He took the class on-line. I have been encouraging him to keep notes all along, and I am sure that he will participate in research that this crisis cries out for: how does the CAO fare, compared to other approaches to teaching?
· CAO Research: A group based in sports management just published a very interesting article (December) on how CAOs work.
“Understanding Interactions in a Classroom-As-Organization Using Dynamic Network Analysis.” Journal of Experiential Education. Dec 2019. Ovidiu Cocieru, Matthew Katz, Mark A. McDonald. DOI: 10.1177/1053825919888778
Background: The Classroom-as-Organization (CAO) is an experiential learning course in which students create and manage an organization as part of class activities. Student interaction with peers is an important feature of the CAO. Educators suggested that student interactions in CAOs follow certain patterns, but these observations have not been tested in empirical research.
Purpose: The research focused on exploring patterns of interaction in a CAO. Methodology/Approach: Network data were collected from students and instructors at four different times during a two-semester CAO course. The authors then used social status theory, friendship formation literature, and Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analysis (SIENA) to test hypotheses about interactions in the CAO. Findings/Conclusions: The authors found evidence that (a) localized informal leaders emerge in the class, (b) reciprocation ties between individuals happens within, but not necessarily between departments, and (c) there is a close connection between class-related interactions and social interactions outside of the class, impacting leadership in the CAO. Implications: Instructors need to pay close attention to understanding and managing interdepartmental relationships in CAOs. Furthermore, educators may only have a limited understanding of CAO group dynamics, given that they may not have a high awareness of student social interactions outside of class.
They use an outward-focused CAO approach, but their findings apply to the laboratory approach.
· Debby Thomas, Stacie Chappell, and David Bright have completed a book on the CAO: Classroom as Organization, forthcoming from Edward Elgar Publishing Limited in their series “Teaching Methods in Business.” Not just a book – a fabulous book, a book that could make Paul Olsen the last senior manager to plunge into the deep end to sink or swim. I got to read it pre-publication. It is complete, with a thorough historical account of CAO, from which I learned a new context in which to understand XB, a complete discussion of how the authors run a CAO, with detailed, practical, and canny instructions for someone daring to start, an annotated bibliography (many of us in it), and tools and appendices galore. From teaching management I learned the importance of the organization, of a group of people who take up a project and improve it over time. Debby, Stacie, and David have taken a significant step in professionalizing the CAO, making it much, much more accessible to M&OB teachers and creating a vocabulary and structure to build on.
Please let’s hear from others. Every university forced on-line has a new appreciation for the social system underlying learning, and we have important insights to contribute. Remember that in Wuhan the character for Crisis is “disaster” plus “opportunity.”
Roger
Laurie Levesque
Roger - great to hear from you! Thanks for the summary. I've been
meaning to reach out.
- Welcome Paul! I will reach out to you this summer (which for us
academics starts in a week or two, right?). I'd love to chat and hear
about your experiences.
- Debby, Stacey, and David congrats!! Looking forward to ordering your
book. That's very exciting and the culmination of much work!
- I'm working on an article about how the novice CAO instructor's
experience in trusting the simulation, CAO, themselves even, parallels
the students' experiences when they are "thrown" into it. It will be
submitted to the special issue of Gaming and Simulation that Elyssebeth
is co-editing, and the topic was accepted. Now I just need to finish the
manuscript, hopefully in time to get a bit of feedback on the early draft.
- Elyssebeth and I are working on a book about facilitating simulations
(out of the box as well as CAO), with a focus on the facilitator. It's
exciting and fun and we speak every few weeks via Zoom. She had
mentioned Paul's revival of XB, which was great news.
- this fall my XB undergrad elective "Managing A Learning Organization"
will run again. It's finally in a format that works well. AND.... not
one I ever pictured might need to go online. I'm planning for a possible
online start (or full semester online - no one knows yet), it will be
interesting to see how this adapts. Could be great, could be a freaking
disaster. But I will spend part of my summer thinking about what changes
in an online environment and what's a minor adaptation. I'm thinking
most of it is easily adaptable to zoom/blackboard: team presentations,
discussion breakouts, memos/feedback, coordination).
- this fall I'll be teaching undergrad OB again. While I cannot do a
full XB format due to the coordinated nature of the course, I'm hoping
to modify the sophomore class enough to have enhanced student
responsibility and accountability for teaching, managing discussions,
giving, feedback. I'm unsure if the two VERY new faculty members will be
willing to try it that way, but with online courses a possibility they
may be open to the tweaks. It's a start :-)
All the best,
Laurie
Eric Nelson
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Debby Thomas
Laurie Levesque
Maybe we can organize a zoom meeting for any of us to gather and
chat about CAO online. Debby, I'd like to hear about your online
course plans. I too want to be ready for online start - that's
easier than having to suddenly switch to online due to lack of
contingency planning! - Laurie
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Olsen, Paul
Do folks have suggestions for how to run XB as a hybrid (or potentially fully online) course?
I’m scheduled to teach two sections of Management (XB) in the fall semester. Last semester we switched to remote instruction after 9 weeks. We had completed Cycle 1 so the shift went reasonably well.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Paul
Dr. Paul E. Olsen, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Associate Professor
Saint Michael's College
Department of Business Administration and Accounting
One Winooski Park, Box 38
Colchester, VT 05439
From: xb...@googlegroups.com [mailto:xb...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of Laurie Levesque
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Subject: Re: CLASSROOM-AS-ORGANIZATION News
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David Alofsin
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Eric Nelson
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Debby Thomas
Debby Thomas, PhD
Associate Dean, College of Business
George Fox University
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Olsen, Paul
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Cc: Olsen, Paul <pol...@smcvt.edu>; Ray Luechtefeld <luech...@ucmo.edu>; Laurie Levesque <lauriel...@comcast.net>; XB Teaching and Research <xb...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: CLASSROOM-AS-ORGANIZATION News
Eric Nelson
Debby Thomas
You all are making me happy right now : ) There is a lot of sweat equity in that book!
Laurie Levesque
I purchased a copy the other day so I could read (and cite) it!
It's well done :-) I'm loving the analysis of literature too (geeky me!!)
Laurie